Introduction

As we hurtle into the twenty-first century, oil is still King.
But it does not rule benevolently. Rather, the reign of those who control
the politics of petroleum continues to undermine democracy while fostering
human rights violations and environmental disasters across the Earth.

Now, by making a major contribution to a global problem that looms
larger than perhaps any before it, big oil may well have met its match.
Indeed, climate change (often referred to as global warming or the
greenhouse effect) has the potential to radically damage entire
ecosystems, agriculture, and the inhabitability of whole countries.
Changing the climate affects everyone and everything.

Despite the efforts of a few transnational oil corporations (as well as
their cohorts in the coal, chemical and car businesses) to dupe the public
into thinking that global warming is not a real threat, the vast majority
of the world's climate scientists and a growing body of evidence say it
is. No longer does the scientific debate focus on if global warming
will happen, but rather on how soon it will occur and on how
bad it will be. And if the extraordinary number of extreme weather
events the world has recently been experiencing -- killer hurricanes,
floods and heat waves in places as far flung as Central America,
Bangladesh and the East Coast of the United States -- are a harbinger of
what is to come, the greenhouse world will be harsh indeed.

The common wisdom is that the modern consumer is at fault; excessive
driving, homes packed with appliances, central heating and cooling, and
failure to turn off the lights when leaving the house are what's ailing
us. This is partly true. But the ability of individual consumers to
radically change their lifestyle while participating in mainstream society
is severely limited. U.S. residents cannot easily buy a solar-powered
house or low emission car, many cannot take public transport to work, and
economic incentives for conservation and efficiency are practically
non-existent.

The ability of the individual consumer to influence climate is dwarfed
by the impact of giant corporations which explore for, extract, transport,
refine and distribute oil which is the primary source of carbon dioxide
emissions - by far the major greenhouse gas. Just 122 corporations account
for 80% of all carbon dioxide emissions. And just five private global oil
corporations -- Exxon Mobil,1
BP Amoco,2
Shell, Chevron and Texaco -- produce oil that contributes some ten percent
of the world's carbon emissions.3

While these five companies and their allies in Congress are busy
blaming the American consumer for massive energy consumption, or the
"Developing World" for not taking adequate steps to curb global warming,
the emissions from the fuel they produce exceed the total of all
greenhouse gasses coming from Central America, South America and Africa
combined!

In addition to producing the oil which is bringing on global
warming, these Greenhouse Gangsters contribute to and perpetuate
the climate change dynamic in several other key ways:

They are refiners and marketers of oil and gas.

They use their political power to prevent technological
transformation and maintain business as usual.

They buy public and scientific opinion.

Oil's Injustices

At the same time that the greenhouse gangsters are pushing the world to
the edge of global ecological havoc, they continue to relentlessly destroy
the health and well being of local communities and ecosystems where
profits from oil are to be found -- be it in the mangrove swamps of the
Niger Delta, the far reaches of the Amazon basin, or the fragile environs
of the Arctic.

As Ecuadorian activist Paulina Garzon describes the petroleum
industry's tremendous impacts: "Oil has changed the face of our land and
the life of our people forever."4

Indigenous peoples and local communities are organizing to protect
their human and environmental rights in almost every single place where
Big Oil sucks crude from the ground. Unfortunately, they are often met
with government repression carried out in complicity with oil giants like
Shell or Chevron.

Meanwhile, tankers and pipelines belonging to corporations like Texaco
and Exxon Mobil have leaked and gushed oil into rivers and the sea,
devastating aquatic ecosystems, undermining the livelihood of local
fisherfolk the world over, and, once again, generating resistance in
communities across the globe.

Refineries run by the likes of BP Amoco and others have spewed toxic
waste into the workplace, as well as the air and groundwater of
neighboring communities, for decades. This behavior has severely affected
the health and safety of refinery workers. It has left the refineries'
neighbors -- often poor communities of color -- dirty water and air, low
property values and depressing nick names such as "cancer alley." But it
has also helped spawn a vibrant movement for environmental justice that
has spread across the United States.

WHAT IS CLIMATE JUSTICE?

Climate Justice means, first of all, removing the
causes of global warming and allowing the Earth to continue to
nourish our lives and those of all living beings. This entails
radically reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
gases.

Climate Justice means opposing destruction wreaked by the
Greenhouse Gangsters at every step of the production and
distribution process -- from a moratorium on new oil
exploration, to stopping the poisoning of communities by refinery
emissions -- from drastic domestic reductions in auto emissions, to
the promotion of efficient and effective public transportation.

Climate Justice in the United States means the solutions adopted
to ward off global warming can't fall hardest on low income
communities, communities of color, or the workers employed by the
fossil fuel industry. Climate Justice means fostering a just
transition for these constituencies to a healthier and more
just environment to work and live in.

Climate Justice means providing assistance to communities
threatened or impacted by climate change, such as the
communities devastated by Hurricanes Mitch and Floyd.

Climate Justice means that while all countries should participate
in the drastic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the
industrialized nations, which historically and currently are most
responsible for global warming, should lead the transformation.
The United States, which emits about 25 percent of greenhouse
gasses, must in particular be at the forefront of this
transformation.

Climate Justice for developing nations means that international
institutions such as the World Bank and World Trade Organization
should halt their funding and promotion of corporate-led fossil
fuel-based globalization and instead foster the transformation
to sustainable and equitable development based on clean energy
technologies.

Ultimately, Climate Justice means holding fossil fuel
corporations accountable for the central role they play in
contributing to global warming. This signifies challenging these
companies at every level -- from the production and marketing of the
fossil fuels themselves, to their underhanded political influence,
to their PR prowess, to the unjust "solutions" they propose, to the
fossil fuel-based globalization they are driving. Climate Justice
means stripping transnational corporations of the tremendous power
they hold over our lives, and in its place building democracy at the
local, national and international levels.

The dynamics of corporate-led globalization are only magnifying this
complex set of problems, and with it, the injustices. Big oil is riding
the wave of globalization to more profits, power and pollution. With the
help of institutions such as the World Trade Organization and subsidies
from the World Bank, the Greenhouse Gangsters are expanding their
exploration into new, uncharted, often pristine ecosystems populated by
Indigenous peoples. Big Oil is also buying up newly privatized state-owned
oil companies in countries like Russia, Brazil and Venezuela. What's more,
the oil industry is making new investments in refining and distribution in
these and other energy hungry countries -- fostering a greater global
dependence on oil.

Meanwhile, in order to remain "competitive" in a global economy they
themselves have helped shape, the Greenhouse Gangsters are cutting costs
at home. To do so they are undermining worker health and safety, and
shedding jobs. They are also merging with one another to form a group of
"super major" companies -- oil behemoths of a scale not seen since the
break-up of the Standard Oil empire nearly a century ago.

Big Oil's profits depend upon the perpetuation of local environmental
injustices along this global chain of production that reaches from
extraction, to transportation, to refining, to distribution. These
activities lead up and contribute to climate change. In fact, the looming
crisis of climate change represents the globalization of this chain of
local ecological and human rights problems. In a sense, global warming is
the explosion of this diversity of local problems into a full blown
planet-wide disaster of unprecedented proportions.

What's more, catastrophic climate change itself will bring with it a
new round of injustices. While the least powerful are the ones who are hit
hardest by the oil industry's multitude of impacts today, it will once
again be the poor and disenfranchised who will suffer the most severe
effects of global warming. For instance, when Hurricane Mitch ravaged
Central America in 1998, it generated hundreds of thousands of
environmental refugees. In the same year, nearly unprecedented flooding in
Bangladesh severely impacted millions of people's lives in one of the
poorest nations on Earth.

If, as scientists predict, sea levels rise while floods and droughts
increase, the rich, middle class and poor will all be affected.
Beach-front property on the East and West coasts will be inundated,
agriculture and commerce will be disrupted, hunger and disease will
spread. But it will be people in places like Bangladesh, along with those
living in the already oil ravaged wetlands of Nigeria and Louisiana, who
will have the least recourse as the oceans submerge their already toxified
landscapes, while scarce services and relief supplies are channeled to the
more privileged.

Defining Climate Justice

The severity and planet-wide nature of climate change represents a sort
of an endgame for the global oil corporations. It sets up a showdown
between the Greenhouse Gangsters whose activities are at the heart of the
global warming crisis, and Climate Justice. The gathering forces of
Climate Justice can be broadly defined as the interests of the vast
majority of the world's people and that of the ecological stability of the
Earth.

What can the average person do to promote Climate Justice? It remains
true that each of us should consume the least resources possible, using
energy efficient cars and light bulbs, etc. But just as important, each of
us can join the effort to hold corporate climate culprits accountable for
their role in what may well be the largest environmental justice issue of
all time.

Climate Justice provides an alternative to the "solutions" corporations
have proposed to the climate problem -- false solutions which are
divisive, inequitable and unjust. Their response, detailed in this report,
is not different from past corporate responses to environmental problems
-- to DENY the problem, DELAY solutions, DIVIDE the opposition, DUMP their
technologies on the developing world and DUPE the public through massive
PR campaigns.

Building a framework for Climate Justice also creates an alternative to
"solutions" to global warming -- such as emissions trading -- that do not
take the social dimension of climate change into account.

Climate Justice integrally links human rights and ecological
sustainability, recognizing that the communities fighting to live free of
the environmental and social problems created by big oil are also on the
front lines in the battle against climate change.

The ranks of those fighting for Climate Justice are filled by democracy
movements struggling against oil interests around the world. They include
communities polluted by refineries and working for environmental justice
in the United States, as well as Indigenous people trying to maintain
their cultures and their lands. Residents of smog-filled cities, and
students seeking to reign in unaccountable university investments all can
be advocates for Climate Justice. Activists working to generate democratic
control over corporations and to reverse the destructive dynamics of
globalization, along with those fighting the environmentally destructive
policies of the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, are also
advocates of Climate Justice.

Part 1: The Most Powerful Industry on Earth

Size Matters

Preventing climate change will take nothing less than a monumental
collective effort to wean society from fossil fuels, which are currently
the very lifeblood of our economies, and even our daily lives. We all must
change. But how?

As we enter the new millennium, governments are looking to the world's
most powerful economic actors, the transnational corporations, for
technological and market oriented solutions to our environmental problems.
Many of the most active environmental pressure groups, from the relatively
mainstream Environmental Defense Fund to the more radical Greenpeace,
routinely discuss the need to steer the private sector toward solutions.
Ethical investors approach the same goal using the persuasion of capital.
The transnational corporations, with their vast resources and technical
capabilities, can invent and implement solutions faster than government
agencies, perhaps faster than we can imagine. Their behavior will
determine our future.

Oil produced by Shell alone
accounts for more carbon dioxide than most countries in the
world.

But what if a group of companies were so powerful that they could
control world politics and markets to such a degree that it became
impossible to steer them, even for governments? What if the policies of
those companies are the reason that we as individuals are locked into
fossil fuel use? What if their leaders believed, like John D. Rockefeller
before them, that "It is not the business of the public to change our
private contracts?"16 Should we then look to them to voluntarily steer
themselves, or should we try to gain democratic control over their
activities?

In a world increasingly dominated by transnational corporations, the
oil industry is the largest business on earth.17
Fully integrated corporations such as Exxon Mobil, BP Amoco, Royal Dutch
Shell, Chevron and Texaco generate hundreds of billions of dollars in
revenue every year. They have a vested interest in all stages of the
industry, from exploration and production to transport, refining, and
marketing final products such as gasoline. Their tentacles reach deep into
the political process of almost every country on Earth. And their product
is the primary source of global warming.

Overall, almost 80 percent of human produced carbon dioxide emissions
come from just 122 private and state owned corporations.18
The oil produced by the five Greenhouse Gangsters accounts for some 10
percent of all global carbon dioxide emissions.19
If we look at other measures such as refining or control of key regional
markets, the role of this group of five fossil fuel corporations is
considerably greater.

For example, the Saudi Arabian state-owned Aramco corporation is the
single largest corporate climate culprit, responsible for nearly 7 percent
of global emissions. But most of the oil the Saudi Aramco produces is
refined and distributed in Europe, the US and Japan by three of the
Greenhouse Gangsters: Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Texaco.20

Similarly, BP Amoco alone, after its acquisition of Arco, will control
59% of US refining and marketing and 28% of European refining.21
Texaco has 3,200 gas stations in Brazil, a 13% retail market share.22
Exxon and Mobil combined have 22% of the US gasoline market, and BP Amoco
has 16%.23

Another way to look at the role of these companies is to compare their
production to country emissions. When we do so, we find that while many of
the greenhouse gangsters are busy insisting that the Third World reduce
its emissions, these corporations produce oil that is responsible for far
more greenhouse gasses than most countries.

Oil produced by Shell alone emits more carbon dioxide than most
countries in the world, including Canada, Brazil, Mexico, France,
Australia and Spain. BP Amoco's production accounts for emissions that
surpass those of its home country, Britain, while Exxon Mobil emissions
equal some 80% of those from all of Africa or South
America.

"Getting Their Way"

The oil industry's power cannot be measured merely by sales, assets, or
barrels of oil produced. We must also look at their political influence.
In the United States, these companies are used to "getting their way," as
The New York Times puts it. The Times calls Exxon and Mobil
"rich in cash, aggressive in style...effective in pursuing their
agenda...at the highest level of government and through arm-twisting in
Congress."25

Other Corporate Climate Culprits

The Auto Industry

Automobiles and trucks use a great deal of the world's oil. In
the US, transportation overall accounts for about 31% of
CO2 emissions, the most of any sector in the world. In
the US especially, millions of drivers have been "sold" on the need
for gas guzzling Sport Utility Vehicles and luxury models. The auto
manufacturers have instigated, aided and abetted this preference
because Sport Utility Vehicles create higher profit margins.
Meanwhile, they have consistently resisted and delayed switching to
fuel-efficient models.

Worldwide, General Motors and Ford combine to
control nearly 1/3 of the market for cars and light trucks, and
could affect world-wide carbon emissions substantially by focusing
on creating and marketing fuel cell, hydrogen based or fuel
efficient cars. Both companies have concentrated more on beefing up
sales of luxury cars.

In March 1999, DaimlerChrysler announced the welcome news
that they have developed a fuel cell car to be marketed in the year
2004. However, in the meantime, every car manufacturer is making big
engined SUVs as fast as it can make them, while lobbying to exclude
these vehicles from fuel efficiency standards.32

Coal Corporations

Besides oil and natural gas, coal makes the largest contribution
to global warming. In addition, coal can cause severe local
pollution, both from mining and from burning. Coal producers supply
25 percent of the world's primary energy demand. A number of giant
coal companies -- Peabody, Cyprus Amax, Rio Tinto, CONSOL, BHP,
and Arch Coal-compete with the oil giants for the dubious
distinction of greenhouse gangsters. Together these six
transnational corporations are responsible for nearly five percent
of all global carbon emissions.33

As they globalize their mining operations, expanding throughout
the Third World, these corporations are fostering many countries'
dependence on carbon intensive coal for their energy needs. These
same corporations are also aggressively working to undermine the
Kyoto Protocol through their industry association, the World Coal
Institute, as well as through the Global Climate Coalition.34

Electric Utilities

Electricity generation is another sector that plays a giant role
in global warming. Like that of motor vehicles, the responsibility
of utilities overlaps with oil companies. Much of the utilities'
fuel is oil, and the general public is the ultimate consumer of the
product. Still, the electric utility companies must become part of
the solution to global warming. The top three electric utilities
emit over 100 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. These
companies' emissions are comparable with the burning of oil and gas
from Texaco, or with all the emissions from Argentina.35

CompanyName

CO2 Emissionsin
Tons/Year

American
Electric Power (AEP)

138
million

The Southern
Company

136
million

Tennessee
Valley Authority

108
million

The Center for Responsive Politics reports that the oil industry as a
whole spent $62 million on lobbying Congress in 1997, the fourth largest
amount of any industry.26
On top of this, between 1991 and 1996, the oil and gas industry
contributed over $53 million to candidates and Political Action
Committees, with most going to Republicans. One analysis showed that these
contributions were steered strategically to members of key Senate
committees.27
In return for this investment, the oil industry receives more than five
billion dollars a year in corporate welfare from the US government.28
Not a bad deal, for them.

This mutually supportive relationship between Congress and Big Oil
undermines the ability of the US government to effectively deal with the
most serious, and potentially calamitous, environmental issue in history.
And it further undermines a democratic process already corrupted by
overwhelming corporate influence.

What's more, as The New York Times once again points out, the
power of Big Oil is greater than the sum of its parts because the industry
is often "marching, and lobbying, in lockstep."29
Or as Exxon Chief Lee Raymond told an audience of his colleagues: "united
we stand, divided we fall." Raymond has called for "cooperation" to
prevent a "fall" on critical issues such as climate change. The models for
these campaigns include working with other trade groups, employees, and
even consumers. Raymond has underscored the importance of allying with the
auto industry in confronting the Kyoto Protocol.30

This alliance of corporate climate culprits extends beyond lobbying to
coordinated public relations campaigns. These PR initiatives, run under
the guise of front groups like the Global Climate Coalition or industry
associations such as the American Petroleum Institute, have also had
profound effects on the US government's ability to seriously address
climate change.

For instance, in the run-up to the original Kyoto Protocol meeting in
1997, industry ran a $13 million dollar advertising campaign aimed at
undermining support for the climate treaty. Then, in April 1998, the
National Environmental Trust discovered a $5 million plan by industry,
including Exxon and Chevron, to train climate science skeptics in public
relations so as to convince the public that climate change was not
real.31
These efforts may well be just the tip of the PR iceberg -- the ones that
have come under public scrutiny. Certainly we can expect that below the
surface many more exist.

In the early days of the oil industry, John D. Rockefeller became the
richest and most reviled man in America by gaining a near monopoly on the
US oil industry for his corporation, Standard Oil. Meanwhile in Asia,
Royal Dutch and Shell competed for dominance before combining. The break
up of Standard Oil in 1911 led to the emergence of a larger group of still
very big companies known as the Seven Sisters, though there were actually
eight major players.36
For much of the century, the Seven Sisters ruled the world's oil industry.
But the dominance of the multinationals was weakened by the formation of
OPEC and the nationalization of the oil industry in the 1970's in the
largest oil producing countries.

The largest oil producers in the world today are still the national oil
companies of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela and Mexico.37
The top ten national oil companies control some 70% of the world's
reserves.38
But now the pendulum of power is swinging back toward the Greenhouse
Gangsters as they once again move to rule the industry. The swing of the
pendulum is speeded by the process of corporate-led globalization.

Globalization supports the interests of transnational oil corporations
in at least four key ways:

MERGER MANIA, which is sweeping the industry, is one way. This
consolidation is occurring as the big corporations attempt to increase
their competitiveness in the world economy. It also represents a shift
in power back toward Big Oil, as the former "seven sisters" attempt to
"unmake history," in a sense reversing some of the break up of Standard
Oil which occurred nearly 90 years ago.39 Assuming regulatory approval,
three of the four largest oil companies in the world will be formed by
recent mergers or acquisitions.40
Although there are still thousands of oil companies in the world, at the
beginning of the 21st century a few supermajors will dominate the
industry to an extent not seen since Standard Oil's heyday.

STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT PROGRAMS, imposed by the World Bank and
IMF, are a second support for the oil transnationals. This, combined
with the collapse of the former Soviet Union, has led to the widespread
privatization of national oil companies. Oil privatization is a major
piece of what author Daniel Yergin has called the "greatest sale in the
history of the world."41
The big oil companies are snapping up interests in these Third World and
Eastern European companies (and their markets) left and right. For
instance, Russia's Gazprom, just recently privatized, is now the single
largest privately owned corporate contributor to climate change,
responsible for more than 4 percent of world carbon emissions. Shell and
others have bought significant stakes in Gazprom.42

Other state-owned oil companies have formed joint ventures with
private sector companies. Mobil's joint venture with PDVSA for
exploration in Venezuela's Orinoco Delta is one example.43
Chevron's James Simpson believes we will see more joint ventures, or
even mergers, between the multinational and national oil
companies.44

FREE TRADE AND INVESTMENT AGREEMENTS and institutions, such as
NAFTA and the World Trade Organization (WTO), are the third plank of
globalization that supports the oil industry. For example, NAFTA -- the
North American Free Trade Agreement -- promotes the oil industry over
ecological sustainability in two key ways. First, it explicitly
encourages governments to subsidize oil and gas mega-projects by
exempting these subsidies from challenge as "unfair barriers to trade."
Meanwhile, NAFTA gives no such protection to government support for
energy efficiency, conservation or alternatives -- leaving clean energy
exposed to the whims of NAFTA's secretive, undemocratic dispute
resolution panels. Under the guise of "free" trade, NAFTA also virtually
eliminates countries' ability to control the development of their energy
resources for export markets -- in essence threatening to make Canada
and Mexico virtual "resource colonies" for the United States' nearly
insatiable energy demand.45

Meanwhile the WTO is lowering barriers to trade and investment around
the world, and encouraging the expansion of countries' increasing
dependency on fossil fuel based transportation, agricultural and energy
development. This creates ever expanding markets for the oil
industry.

Of course, it is no coincidence that fossil fuel industry
associations and corporations, including Greenhouse Gangster Texaco
dominate the official US government trade advisory committee for energy
issues. There are no human rights, labor or environmental groups on this
committee, and only one renewable energy industry association. By
contrast there are fourteen oil, gas, electric utility and mining
companies and industry associations on the committee.46
These climate culprits are working hand in glove with the US Trade
Representative to forge a new round of WTO negotiations focusing on
energy deregulation. Just as the WTO's logging accord will increase
deforestation rates, thus undermining, not only biological and cultural
diversity, but also the role that the world's forests play in
stabilizing the global climate, an energy agreement will likely have the
effect of accelerating destructive global warming trends.

The WTO can also be used to stifle countries' efforts to comply with
the Kyoto climate treaty. For instance, the US and the European Union
are threatening to go after Japan's new fuel efficiency standards --
rules that are designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions -- as unfair
barriers to trade.47
Government subsidies for energy efficiency, "green" government
purchasing programs, and government labeling of goods whose production
contributes to climate change are all at risk of being struck down by
the WTO.48

NEW FRONTIERS, including ecologically fragile areas, are
opened up to oil exploration by globalization. As free trade and
investment accords tear down international economic barriers,
transnational corporations are rushing into a number of new areas. The
Greenhouse Gangsters are amassing cash to expand their reach to the
developing countries of the South, to the remote rainforests, to the
deep sea, to the forbidding Arctic, literally "to the ends of the
earth."49

Oil exploration is monumentally expensive. Even with record low oil
prices, in 1998 the industry spent $88 billion in exploration.50
Prices rebounded in 1999, and exploration budgets are likely to soar
even higher. Even Shell and BP agree, on paper, that renewables are the
wave of the future. Yet Big Oil's long-term strategy is still dictated
by the urge to explore. Why?

Many oil executives seem to share the feeling that "without
oil...civilization as we know it could not exist."51
Certainly their companies could not exist, at least not without a
transformation. One traditional measure of success for these companies
is how well they replace production with new discoveries. This brings
pressure on the oil companies to look harder for more oil.

Yet there is good reason for the oil companies to resist this logic
and allow discoveries to lag behind production. The reason is we have
too much oil. This is true in the short term, as the glut of 1998 and
OPEC's decision to curtail production in early 1999 showed. But it is
also true in the long term. The scientists of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimate that in order to stabilize
CO2 concentrations at current levels we would need to cut
back on carbon emissions by some 60%.52
There is simply no way to do this without a massive cutback on fossil
fuel consumption and development of alternate energy. The world's proven
oil and gas reserves, if fully exploited, would far exceed the earth's
capacity to absorb carbon emissions. In other words, it is impossible to
safely burn even the fossil fuels we already have, let alone those still
undiscovered.53
Yet the oil giants continue their expensive and destructive search for
new oil and gas fields, even in some of the most remote places on the
planet.

Corporate-led globalization is
accelerating the pace of climate change.

This drive toward new oil exploration has come up against a movement
for human and environmental rights. The oil industry has profound
impacts not only on the global climate, but on local ecology and the
struggle for democracy. Currently, new exploration and oil or gas
pipelines continue to threaten the survival of Indigenous peoples in the
Amazon basin, Southeast Asia, North America and other centers of
Indigenous life. These people and their supporters have been actively
resisting the encroachment of oil and gas exploitation on their
land.

Such movements are attempting to combat the economic globalization
fueling the Greenhouse Gangsters' expansion by building a process of
"grassroots globalization," an informal network of Indigenous people,
economic justice advocates, human rights defenders and environmental
groups which coordinate efforts to curtail destructive oil development.
Recognizing that new oil exploration threatens both the global climate
and local ecology and culture, members of this network have called
publicly for a moratorium on new oil exploration.54
As Nigerian human rights attorney and activist Oronto Douglas has put
it, "a stoppage of oil in the frontiers and fragile environments" can
serve as "a first step towards arresting climate change."55

In sum, globalization has fostered the consolidation of the oil
industry in an ever smaller number of mega-corporations. It has allowed
these oil giants to buy up former state-owned companies. While through
NAFTA, the WTO and other accords, it has fostered a deregulation of trade
and investment which is providing the oil industry with the opportunity to
continue to expand its exploration and its markets. As a result,
globalization increases the Greenhouse Gangsters' responsibility for
climate change, both in the United States and around the world.

Part 2: The Corporate Response -- The Five "Ds"

"There is no an effective consensus among the world's leading
scientists and serious and well-informed people outside the scientific
community that there is a discernable human influence on the climate, and
a link between the concentration of carbon dioxide and the increase in
temperature...The time to consider the policy dimensions of climate change
is conclusively proven...but when the possibility cannot be discounted and
is taken seriously by the society of which we are a part. We in BP have
reached that point."

The words of BP's John Browne sound reassuring, especially coming from
one of the most influential executives in the oil industry today. Surely
they are a step forward from the total denial that climate change is a
problem, which has been issued by most oil executives until recently. But
what do they mean in real terms? Has John Browne put his company's money
where his mouth is? How about the other oil giants? Will they act soon
enough, and vigorously enough, to play their part in preventing climate
change?

To begin to answer these questions, we invite you to study the reaction
of the climate culprits to the news of climate change, and compare it to
the behavior of other industries faced with the conundrum of a product
which provides profits but also damages health and the environment. That
behavior, typically, can be summarized as: Deny, Delay, Divide, Dump, and
Dupe -- the Five "D"s. These often overlapping tactics and strategies form
the core of the corporate response to environmental issues and are all on
prominent display in the global warming debate.

DENY

"There is no harm to human health or the environment."
Sound familiar? This phrase is stock in trade for corporate spokespeople
whenever there is a release, spill, or accident of any kind.

It is also the first reaction of manufacturers to scientific or
anecdotal evidence that their products are causing long-term damage. For
example, DuPont, which was the top manufacturer of chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs) for most of the century, denied the connection between CFCs and
ozone destruction for 14 years after that connection was first
discovered.57
Only after evidence was so overwhelming that dissent evaporated did DuPont
finally announce its own decision to phase-out CFCs.

In the case of leaded gasoline additive, too, the industry which made
it fought tooth and nail against the phase-out despite evidence of
childhood lead poisoning, denying that the additive was the cause. The
asbestos industry has a similar history of denying the connection between
asbestos products and cancer.58

Currently, the chlorine industry as a whole is still in the midst of
denial that its products are at the root of many of the world's most toxic
and persistent chemicals.59

Typically, these industries use a scientific sounding approach to
bolster their denials of harm. Most infamous in this regard is the tobacco
industry, which claimed that there was no proven connection between
smoking and lung cancer despite the overwhelming evidence of such a
connection.

A former speechwriter in the auto industry recalls the policy at
General Motors: "If we were accused of contributing to air pollution, we
would simply say nothing had been proved."60

Strictly speaking, that was true. But what does it really mean?

The "no proof of harm" defense is a misleading use of scientific
sounding language. "No proof of harm" may sound to the unsuspecting ear
like "there is no harm." But that is not what the scientist means. In the
laboratory, to prove a hypothesis, the scientist must prove cause and
effect, and must be able to replicate results. In the real world, it is
difficult to create the conditions to prove, beyond a scientific doubt,
that a certain chemical causes a certain ailment. "No proof of harm" is
not the same as "no harm." The industry understands this, yet they use the
scientific language of "no proof" to imply that there is no cause and
effect.

Waiting for scientific proof is morally wrong, because by definition
the proof of cause and effect comes after the damage is already done. The
toy industry, in recent years, kept vinyl toys on the shelves saying there
was no proof of connection between vinyl toys and harm to health of
children. But parents understood that there was a strong possibility of a
problem. The companies agreed to phase out dangerous vinyl additives even
though advocates could not name a single child who had been affected by
the chemicals.61

This principle of avoiding harm even when there is no absolute
scientific certainty is the precautionary approach. The precautionary
approach is endorsed by many international agreements, including the Rio
Declaration, and even, in theory, by Shell and BP.

Denial by the Greenhouse Gangsters

The theory of climate change due to human activities became well-known
in 1988, when a scorching summer and other events brought environmental
issues to the fore. It was also the year of the first major international
conference on climate change. The meeting helped create the IPCC, a large
group of the world's best climate scientists. At this conference,
industrialized countries' governments pledged to voluntarily cut
CO2 emissions by 20% by the year 2005.

By the time of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, the Climate Convention was
one of the most important international treaties on the table. The
reaction of the oil companies was predictable. Climate change was not
proven, the science was not scientific, there was no cause for alarm, etc.
In short, full denial of the problem. An industry lobby group, the Global
Climate Coalition (GCC), was formed to spread the notion that global
warming is a dangerous myth. Until recently, the GCC was the main voice of
the oil industry at climate negotiations and in key capital cities.
Although other industry associations have formed with more sophisticated
positions, the GCC continues to rely on the old habit of inappropriately
emphasizing the lack of proof.62

This trick is still used by Mobil and others, who stress the lack of
certainty as a reason to delay actions.63

Currently, outright denial by the Greenhouse Gangsters has weakened a
bit. For example, Shell and BP have left the GCC. They agree that actions
should be taken even when there is scientific uncertainty. However these
words have not translated into significant actions to protect the climate.
The US majors, Exxon, Mobil, Chevron and Texaco are all still in the
"deny" mode, stressing the uncertainty of the scientific studies as a
reason to delay action, while admitting there is "concern."64

Exxon turns the precautionary principle on its head, comparing the
supposed uncertainty of the science of climate change to the alleged
certainty of "serious adverse consequences for economic development and
growth around the world" if fossil fuel use is curtailed.65 This
rhetorical trick still sounds like precaution, but actually is an
old-fashioned cost-benefit assertion. For Exxon, the economic disruptions
of climate protection are more costly than the benefits of climate
protection.

DELAY

In the case of lead fuel additive, asbestos and CFCs,
eventually the evidence became so overpowering, and society so
overwhelmingly in favor of phase-out, that the industry was forced to
abandon their denials, or the denials were simply ignored. Once denial has
been abandoned, the industry puts more of its effort into delay.

The delay strategy relies a great deal on the value to society of the
product in question. Issues of jobs, convenience, and consumer prices are
brought in to show that there will be a downside to the phase-out. In this
way the public is divided -- workers against environmentalists, people
adversely affected versus those who gain convenience, rich versus poor --
and momentum for phase-out is temporarily slowed. All of these products
are useful to at least one constituency, and their replacements are
generally less proven. Users and consumers are scared into thinking that
their refrigerators or cars will not work, and begin to support a gradual
sunsetting of a product rather than an immediate ban.

The latest possible phase-out date is sought, so that the maximum use
can be made of equipment and technology which already represents
investment for the firms. Meanwhile, the firms work feverishly to control
the market in the successor products. DuPont did this brilliantly, having
already established a dominant market share for CFC replacements like HCFC
31, even as they were wringing the last profits out of CFCs. DuPont
flourished during the phase-out of CFCs by delaying it long enough to plan
its own dominance of replacement chemicals.

Delay by the Greenhouse Gangsters

Delay is also an important tactic for the Greenhouse Gangsters. Mobil
laid its cards on the table in a series of ads just before and after the
Kyoto meeting in December 1997. On the op-ed page of The New York Times,
Mobil emphasizes the "high degree of uncertainty" over the impact of human
carbon emissions. It says we "don't know enough about global warming;" it
scares us with predictions of job loss and "difficult choices" for
Americans, such as "How much prosperity are Americans willing to forgo?"
and "How much more tax will they have to pay?" It warns that the Protocol
could put "the U.S. at a disadvantage." And it claims that actions to
prevent climate change "could wreak havoc on nations." This is the set up.
Mobil then advises us not to take any "quick-fix" measures, and to "Stop,
look and listen before we leap." In other words, delay.66

To implement the delay, the entire strategic arsenal is on display.
Contributions to right wing legislators; alliances with other industries
such as the auto industry and with some labor unions such as the United
Mine Workers of America; lobbying for US rejection of the Kyoto Protocol,
even after weakening it by calling for late action; the formation of the
Global Climate Coalition and other lobby groups which are very active at
the climate negotiations -- these are all aimed at delaying changes.

Delay is self-perpetuating. Mobil notes that the 7% carbon cuts between
2008 and 2012 which the US would require under the Kyoto Protocol really
represent 41% cuts, because the 7% are below 1990 levels. It uses the 41%
figure to frighten the public into thinking that affluence and modern
convenience are at stake. Mobil does not mention that its own denials and
delays are part of the reason that carbon emissions are still growing in
the US Its own policies are part of the reason that the relatively modest
7% goal will be more difficult to reach.67

Here it is also interesting to note the role of BP and Shell, the two
Greenhouse Gangsters that have admitted that climate change is a serious
problem. These companies have stated that precautionary action is
appropriate to the situation; that is, carbon emissions should be reduced
even though they believe there is no scientific certainty that human
activities are causing harmful climate change. They have received positive
attention for these statements, and for a stated commitment to investment
in solar energy.

Shell and BP, as European-based companies, were quicker to understand
the meaning of a precautionary approach, and quicker to include it in
their rhetoric. In their home countries, where climate change has become a
big issue, the political climate encourages such political positioning.
But these companies' relatively minor efforts to promote alternative
energy may, more than anything else, help alleviate the growing political
pressure on them, serving to delay real measures to address global
warming.What's more, Shell and BP are content to allow the American
Petroleum Institute do their dirty work for them. API continues its role
in denying the problem of climate change and delaying solutions.68
In doing so, API represents both BP Amoco and Shell Oil. The positions of
the more reactionary companies like Exxon, and of industry associations
like API, allow Shell and BP to sound progressive and environmentalist
without having to make substantial changes to their business plans. Or, as
The Wall Street Journal puts it, "oil companies play on both sides
of the global warming debate."69

Pollution Trading -- Another Way to Delay

To prevent climate change, reducing fossil fuel use is the crux of the
matter. Yet the US government and industry have gone to great lengths to
come up with schemes to avoid or delay doing just that while still getting
credit for carbon reductions. These schemes are based on the principle of
emissions trading.

In its broadest sense, trading takes several forms, which are known as
Flexible Mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol. These include Joint
Implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Joint
Implementation allows the industrialized countries to buy the credit for
another country's reductions rather than having to reduce emissions at the
source. The CDM allows the industrialized countries to avoid domestic
reductions in exchange for participating in developing country projects
which would produce lower emissions than otherwise would have been
emitted. For example, the US could buy "credit" for carbon absorbed by
carbon "sinks," like forests, in the South, or for global warming gas
reductions in the former Soviet Union, where economic downturn is causing
reductions anyway.

Experience with emissions trading in air pollution has shown that
pollution trading can create phantom reductions, reward the worst
historical polluters, promote fraud, and undermine technology innovation.
Emissions trading schemes do not address the local polluting effects of
carbon emitting facilities like refineries, and therefore can exacerbate
environmental racism both within the US and across borders. And the
trading system puts southern countries at a disadvantage when they begin
making carbon cuts, since the easiest cuts will have already been
purchased and credited to northern countries.70

Even some climate science skeptics such as Jack Kemp realize that
emissions trading is "a cynical bargain between big business and the
Federal Government" which will "divide the business community between
winners...and losers, who will face the full brunt of any emissions
controls."71

The Greenhouse Gangsters are by no means the only proponents of
emissions trading as a solution to climate change. It is supported by some
environment groups such as Environmental Defense Fund and Union of
Concerned Scientists. But to an extent, this support reflects the
realpolitik of climate change. It presupposes that we cannot force the
fossil fuel industry to change if we cannot make it profitable to do so,
and this assumption is based on the knowledge of the industry's tremendous
power. Questions of justice and fairness become secondary in the
realpolitik calculation. Trading schemes, as one columnist puts it,
provide a "pretense of action to the public while giving winking assurance
to industry that the status quo is not disturbed."72

The embrace of emissions trading as a solution reflects the desperate
lengths to which the US government feels it must go to avoid and delay
making actual reductions in our dependence on fossil fuels and our
emissions of carbon. The emissions trading system allows the least
challenge to the power of the Greenhouse Gangsters and their allies, while
undermining the creation of real solutions to climate change.

DIVIDE

In fighting environmental regulation, corporations do
not merely advocate delay, but bring out the entire arsenal of tactics to
effect the delay. Among the most important of these tactics is to DIVIDE
the opposition. Perhaps the most important division exploited by business
in the last 30 years has been between the environment and labor movements.
From the infamous spotted owl versus lumberjacks debate in the Pacific
Northwest to the closing of chemical plants, jobs versus environment is
the traditional wedge for business.

Some environment and labor advocates believe this wedge is becoming
even more powerful, due to rising job insecurity.73

Greenhouse Gloom and Doom

In the case of global warming, the threat of job loss and other
economic forecasts of doom have been an effective way to divide critics of
the fossil fuel industry. In the US, the economic doom forecast by the
industry should the Kyoto Protocol move forward has successfully divided
environmentalists from at least a portion of the labor community, despite
that fact that workers have not fared well at the hands of the fossil fuel
industry, and despite efforts by the AFL-CIO to keep open a dialogue
between the labor and environmental movements.74

Job loss in the US has been the most effective scare tactic industry
has used in opposing climate protection in general and the Kyoto treaty in
particular. Let's look at those claims.

According to the American Petroleum Institute (API), the oil industry
employs nearly 1.5 million people in the US75
API, whose members include all the major oil companies, has actively
raised the specter of job loss due to the Kyoto Protocol.76

In 1997, a study by the Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates
forecast wildly gloomy consequences if the US were to sign the Kyoto
Treaty. These included the loss of 2.4 million jobs, $300 billion in GDP,
and an average loss of $2,700 per household.77
The study was cited by the American Petroleum Institute, Mobil and other
companies as evidence of the hardships combating climate change will
bring.

Big oil's rush to profits comes at
the expense of jobs, community health and the environment --their
tactic is to play these groups against one another.Credit: Sam Kittner/Greenpeace.

The Economic Policy Institute examined the study and found the authors
had included portions of the Kyoto Protocol which were not agreed to and
made other unduly pessimistic assumptions.78
The National Environmental Trust discovered connections between Wharton
and the GCC, API, Shell and Texaco. API funded the study.79

API also co-sponsored a study by Ronald Sutherland, which concludes
that the Kyoto Protocol would cost Americans thousands of jobs -- 23,000
in the aluminum industry alone, 5,800 in the cement industry, 7,500 to
75,000 in the chemical industry, and thousands more in steel, paper and
petroleum refining. The study says that the jobs would migrate overseas,
to countries with less stringent commitments under Kyoto.80

Again, a gloom and doom scenario. The tone of these studies and ads
implies that the industry is just fine as it is, and the Kyoto Protocol is
the main threat to its health. In reality, the fossil fuel industry is
already shedding jobs, without influence from the Kyoto Protocol.

In the US, the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates that from 1990
-1996, oil and gas extraction lost 76,000 jobs net. According to the
Bureau, between Oct. 1997 and March 1999, 52,000 jobs -- some 15% of the
workforce -- were lost in oil and gas production alone, and many will not
be replaced. Exxon chief Lee Raymond says 450,000 oil jobs were lost
between 1981 and 1996, though he blames US environmental regulations for
the loss.81
Many of the job losses are among the small producers, who are hardest hit
by low prices.82

But giant oil companies are cutting jobs as well

The Oil and Gas Journal believes that most of the 51,500 oil
jobs lost from December 1997 to February 1999 were layoffs at large
companies.83
BP Amoco's purchase of Arco will lead to approximately 2,000 jobs lost,
mostly in California.84
Two months before the announcement of the ARCO acquisition, BP Amoco had
already laid off 400 Alaska workers.85
In January the company announced a loss of 900 jobs in Britain and in
February 1,500 Chicago area jobs.86
The Exxon Mobil merger will involve at least 9,000 jobs lost.87
And Exxon has already been cutting jobs at the rate of 4% annually for
over a decade.88

Neither climate change nor the Kyoto Protocol are a current cause of
job loss in the fossil fuel industry. Rather, management's own plans for
mergers and other restructuring to maximize competitiveness and profit,
are the main forces behind job loss in the industry.

The predicted future losses are also misleading. The API studies and
related advertising campaigns assume that the Kyoto Protocol will be
signed without policies to mitigate the job loss. That is a preposterous
assumption, and there are many policies available.

The Sutherland study asserted that jobs in the steel, paper, cement and
refining industries would migrate to developing countries with less
stringent Kyoto commitments. It is true, though reprehensible, that some
of the dirtiest industries have migrated to developing countries when
health and safety regulations make it more difficult or more expensive to
operate in the US

Fossil fuel corporations are
misleading the American public by playing off their fears and
blaming the "Third World."

But ironically, it is these industries, including the members of API,
which support the ability of US companies to freely move wherever on earth
they wish. Instead of arguing for some control on the export of polluting
and hazardous industries to the South, they now argue that we can't afford
regulations because industry will leave.

The argument is disingenuous is another way. Even without regulations
which directly restrict migration of dirty industries, there are ways to
prevent the loss of these jobs. A carbon tax on imported carbon intensive
goods is one way. A border adjustment is another way. With border
adjustments, the tax on fuel, for example, is based on the place of
consumption, not production. Therefore, there is no incentive to move
production overseas. Border adjustments are already commonly used and are
compatible with international trade rules. For example, ozone depleting
chemicals are taxed in this way.89
When industry tries to scare us about job loss if we take action to
prevent global warming, they are deliberately ignoring these policies.

The Greenhouse Gangsters are also ignoring the employment
benefits of cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Researchers looking at
solar and wind power, micro-energy and low/no-emission vehicles have
concluded that the Kyoto Protocol "would create more winners than losers"
through low energy prices and job creation.90
One detailed report shows how market-based policies favoring new
technologies could not only reduce carbon emissions and other pollutants,
but also "cut energy costs, increase employment... [and] reduce net costs
by $530 per household."91

Economic Extortion and Job Fear or Just Transition?

In the long run, jobs will be displaced as the fossil fuel
industry is gradually phased out. Unless something unexpected happens to
reverse the trend of global warming, this is as inevitable and desirable
as the phase-out of leaded gasoline, CFCs, and asbestos. The sooner we
plan for the transition, the better off workers and environment will
be.

THE BLAME GAME: GLOBAL WARMING & GLOBAL EQUITY

How should actions to prevent climate change be shared among the
countries of the world? There are many ways to look at the question,
and the answer, inevitably, is political. A common sense approach to
equity, or fairness, includes the following factors:97

historical emissions

current and future emissions

per capita emissions

ability to reduce emissions without hardship to
population

The Kyoto Protocol, which so outrages big oil, says that the US,
Western Europe and other industrialized countries must reduce their
carbon emissions by various amounts by the year 2010. Developing
country commitments will come later. Is this really so
unreasonable?

One measure of how to require actions would be historical
responsibility. In other words, how much total carbon a given
country has emitted in the past is one indication of their
responsibility. By this criterion, the United States has by far the
largest contribution to total CO2 emissions. Despite
having smaller population, the US has emitted about three times more
CO2 since 1950 than the Soviet Union/Russia or
China.98
The industrialized world as a whole accounts for about 80% of
CO2 emissions historically.99

In current emissions, the US also has by far the highest of any
country in the world. Moreover, US emissions are still growing, with
an increase of 11% between 1990 and the year 2000. With the
exception of Germany and the UK, all the major emitters whose
CO2 emissions decreased were in the former East bloc; the
decrease was due to economic stagnation rather than improved
efficiency or development of alternative fuels.100

On a per capita basis, the US contribution is even more skewed.
On average a US citizen emits about 120 pounds of greenhouse gases
per day, about twice as much as the average for other wealthy
countries like France, Germany or Japan. With just four per cent of
the world's population, the US emits about one-fourth of the world's
greenhouse gases.101
The average greenhouse gas emissions of a US citizen are equal to 25
Indians, 33 Pakistanis, 125 Bangladeshis, or 500 Nepalese.102

Worse still, US energy consumption is still growing, largely as a
result of more driving, bigger cars, bigger houses and appliances,
and lack of efficiency measures by industry.103

In addition, the US has the strongest economy in the world, and
one of the highest rates of CO2 emissions per unit of
GDP. By any interpretation of equity, the US should double, triple
or quadruple the reductions of almost all other large countries,
even the wealthiest nations of Western Europe. Neither the Kyoto
Protocol nor any other forum has dared to suggest this, however.

If one were to take into account emissions created by US
corporations operating in the developing world, the responsibility
of the US is greater still.

And what about China and India? If we look at the four criteria
for common sense fairness above, we see that these countries fit
just one of the four. They are not major historical contributors,
they have relatively low per capita emissions, and their widespread
poverty makes it difficult to reduce emissions while improving the
standard of living. But in simple numerical terms, it is true that
China, India, Brazil and a few other developing countries must
become part of the solution if climate change is to be prevented. As
we have already seen, the oil companies, along with the
international financial institutions, nevertheless are pushing the
development of fossil fuel based economies on these
countries.

The phase-out of leaded fuel is a fascinating precedent, and one which
we must avoid repeating. Lead was added to gasoline starting in 1924 to
boost octane. By the 1970's scientists discovered that this was a
monumental mistake. Leaded fuel was the biggest source of global lead
contamination and millions of children had been poisoned by lead, causing
loss of intelligence, behavioral problems and neurological problems.
Starting in 1975, lead was phased out of gasoline.92

DuPont, Ethyl and other lead additive producers warned that thousands
of jobs would be lost as a result of the phase-out. They were not crying
wolf. The closure of lead additive plants and refineries (some of which
closed rather than upgrade) cost 7,670 jobs.93

For some of the families of these workers, the layoffs were no doubt a
severe hardship. Yet who would argue that another entire generation of
children should risk the nightmare of lead poisoning to protect these
jobs? Who would tell a mother in New York City or Oakland that her child
must breathe additional lead because a job must be protected at all
costs?

It is entirely understandable that each generation of workers will
fight to protect its jobs. But industries will continue to transform,
mostly due to changing markets or technologies, but also sometimes as a
response to social or environmental issues. When these changes cost jobs,
the response should be not to protect jobs in dirty industries
indefinitely but to provide a JUST TRANSITION. Such support needs to be
both for workers who lose their jobs, and the communities that are left
dealing with the environmental and economic consequences of a toxic
industry departing as a result of regulations which benefit the wider
society.

The Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union, which has since merged with
the Paperworkers International to form PACE, has demanded the creation of
a National Just Transition Fund "to provide full income protection, access
to sustainable jobs and education for workers in toxic industries, and
economic support for impacted communities."94
PACE is working with the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic
Justice and other environmental justice organizations to build
a Just Transition Consortium that organizes workers and fence-line
communities through training and dialogue. Meanwhile, in Canada, the
Chemical, Energy and Paperworkers Union has not only made Just Transition
its policy, but is working nationally to make it a legislative initiative
across the country.

API and its members, which cry so loudly about job loss due to the
Kyoto Protocol, are mainly silent about their workers' call for Just
Transition. Industry's concern about job loss due to the Kyoto Protocol or
other means of reducing fossil fuel use rings hollow when it routinely
slashes jobs to increase profits. Its failure to develop plans for a Just
Transition is another way the Greenhouse Gangsters hang on to their fossil
fuel business at the expense of the planet's health.

North vs. South

How to cut greenhouse gas emissions in a way that is fair to all
countries is the most contentious issue at the Kyoto Protocol
negotiations. This reflects both the real complexity of the issue and the
mutual suspicion between so called developed and developing countries in
international politics.

The Greenhouse Gangsters have used this emotionally and politically
charged issue to slow down, weaken or derail progress toward
CO2 reductions. Fossil fuel corporations have used jingoism and
xenophobia cleverly to divide the international public on the issue. The
main theme is the need for developing countries to cut carbon
emissions.

The petroleum industry has insisted that the Kyoto Protocol is unfair
because no action is required of developing countries. Its campaign has
worked, as its position has been echoed in the US Senate and casts a
shadow over the climate negotiations.95
The industry has deliberately focused on this issue because it plays to
the most jingoistic and racist side of the US public, to the
unsubstantiated but nagging belief that the masses of China and India are
the real environmental problem, to the fear that the United Nations is
picking on the American people, their freedom, their lifestyle.96

The justification for this position is that in approximately 2015,
according to the International Energy Agency, carbon emissions from
developing countries as a group will exceed those of industrialized
countries. Yet this projection is just one side of the story, and does not
mean that all countries must make the same commitments. The corporations
know this. In truth, their position is really an attempt to weaken or
derail the treaty altogether.

The oil industry downplays the obvious fact-understood by everyone
outside the United States -- that carbon emission cuts must come from the
US, which puts out 24% of all greenhouse gasses, making it the single
largest contributor to climate change. This divisive theme leads to
misplaced outrage among some Americans at developing countries. This is
juxtaposed with the outrage felt by much of the world at massive
overconsumption in the US With people from industrialized countries and
developing countries blaming each other and misunderstanding their
relative responsibilities and roles, the oil industry no doubt feels less
threatened than it would in a world united to reduce fossil fuel
use.

DUMP

When a corporation sees the writing on the wall, when
its home country has at last banned its product, it may have already made
arrangements to protect profits by dumping the product in the developing
world.

In one especially heinous case, Shell and other companies manufactured
a pesticide for export to Central America even after its use was banned in
the US because it caused sterilization in men.104

But in many cases, the expansion of a dirty industry proceeds well
before regulations clip its wings at home.

The tobacco industry is one of the best examples of an industry which
first denied scientific proof, then delayed restriction at home, and then
dumped its product on the rest of the world. As massive public education
campaigns and the litigation by State Attorneys General finally brought an
end to growth for tobacco in the US, the tobacco companies were busy
building their markets overseas. They enlisted the United States Trade
Representative's help in opening markets. And they kept health warnings
off cigarettes for export, even when such warnings were required in the
US

The strategy worked. Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds, the two leading US
companies, now sell nearly 2/3 of their cigarettes and earn nearly half
their profits abroad.105

It worked for DuPont and Ethyl as well. They continued profiting from
export of lead fuel additive to the developing world well after its role
in causing childhood lead poisoning was understood and its use was
phased-out in the US and Canada.106

Canada, the second largest producer of asbestos in the world, exports
nearly all of it, since asbestos is virtually banned in Canada. Most of
the exports go to the developing world, where people are still routinely
exposed to the misery of asbestos diseases.107

The chlorine industry and its satellite industries like pulp, paper and
PVC plastic are expanding most rapidly in Asia and Latin America as the
environmental consequence of chlorine chemistry has become understood in
Europe and North America.108

Since most technologies and products which spread globally are first
invented in the North, this is the standard pattern. It is a pattern which
has become even more pronounced as the rules of the global economy
facilitate the export of dirty industry and discourage national
governments from preventing import of environmentally damaging products
and technologies.

Chevron said it well in its 1992 Annual Report. "Attractive
opportunities overseas combined with limited business opportunities in the
US due to stringent regulatory barriers, drilling bans and a dwindling
number of high-potential exploration opportunities have resulted in a
shift in investment emphasis."109

Despite some differences, the expansion of the fossil fuel industry in
the South has a lot in common with the classic dumping practices of
tobacco, asbestos and lead industries.

Most governments agree that, despite the squeals of the US right wing,
the developing world should be given more time before they are required to
cut back on CO2 emissions. During that time, developing
countries will be a growth market for oil and gas. So the oil giants,
along with many of the smaller brethren, are tripping over each other to
claim concessions in these countries. An oil concession map of the Amazon
basin of South America or West Africa looks like a who's who of
international oil companies. Massive areas of Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia,
Colombia and Ecuador are given over to these companies by governments in
the process of economic liberalization.110

The process of globalization, supported and pushed by these same
corporations, opens the economies up to these companies. These countries
become as dependent on fossil fuels, both for foreign exchange and for
domestic consumption, as any industrialized country.

Hydrocarbon Hypocrisy

The industrialized world and its corporations are driving the
developing world toward replicating the energy model which causes global
warming, and supporting massive new fossil fuel projects for the South.
This being the case, it is remarkable that the same forces are crying out
that the developing world must reduce CO2 emissions under the
Kyoto Protocol.

Exxon chief Lee Raymond, for example, reminded an audience in China of
"the need to maintain and, if possible, increase local production and
reserves [of oil]..." He went on to explain that "excluding developing
countries from the reductions [of the Kyoto Protocol] will not prevent
them from being hurt. Their exports will suffer as the economies of
industrialized nations slow."111

As already noted, the oil majors are highly transnationalized companies
and their petroleum activities extend to dozens of countries in Africa,
Latin America and Asia. They are proud of their role as major driving
forces behind the growth of the fossil fuel industries in the
South.112
To name just one notorious example, Exxon and Shell are part of the
consortium planning the controversial Chad Cameroon gas pipeline, which
will have the capacity to carry 225,000 barrels of crude per day for a
period of 25-30 years.113

It is one thing to invest millions in growing a carbon-based economy in
the developing countries, but another to insist simultaneously that these
countries must plan to cut carbon emissions. The Rio Earth Summit
established the principle that industrialized and developing countries
have "common but differentiated responsibilities."114
This principle guides the Kyoto treaty as well. It is an accepted part of
the international approach to environmental issues. The oil giants are
well aware of this.

Yet the oil companies have allowed their public relations departments,
trade associations, front groups and right-wing politicians to do the
dirty work of stigmatizing China, India, and other developing countries to
the US public. The United Nations and environmental "extremists," like Al
Gore, are demonized for allowing these countries a different timetable for
adjusting their economies to the reality of climate change.

The Greenhouse Gangsters should be telling the world the truth. It is
the US-its government, people and, perhaps most of all, its
corporations-which must take the lead role if disastrous climate change is
to be prevented.

DUPE

Since the late 1980's, industry has become
increasingly concerned and sophisticated about environmental issues.
Whether the concern is mainly for the environment or for their public
image is a matter of heated debate. Some companies and business groups do
not even distinguish between the two rationales.116

In any case, business has moved aggressively to control the terms of
the environmental debate, by co-opting and distorting environmental
language, by forming environmental departments and giving speeches about
the importance of environment for good business, by creating corporate
sponsored "environmental" groups, by allying with mainstream
non-governmental organizations, by investing in small-scale projects which
are environmentally friendly and distract from the destructive nature of
their core business, and by "posing as friends of the environment and
leaders in the struggle to eradicate poverty."67

Going green or greenwashing? BP
bought itself the world's largest solar company for $45 million.
Meanwhile it plans to spend $5 billion on more oil exploration and
production.

The largest petroleum, chemical, nuclear and mining companies have
spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to convince the public that
they are the leaders in environmental protection and our allies in
promoting sustainable development and human rights. Some of the most
notorious names in environmental history -- DuPont, Dow, Sandoz, Monsanto,
Shell, Exxon -- have promoted themselves as environmentally concerned
leaders. The phenomenon of environmental image advertising and other
environmentally oriented PR programs has been dubbed "greenwash."118

Greenhouse Greenwash

The Greenhouse Gangsters, some of which were pioneers of greenwash in
the 1980's, indulge in un-healthy doses of climate greenwash.

Exxon has its "Save the Tiger Fund," which associates its logo with the
endangered tiger.120

Mobil has its unctuous op-ed page ads every Thursday in The New York
Times. In May 1999, Mobil boasted of how it overcame Conservation
International's alarm at plans to develop oil in the sensitive Tambopata
rainforest of Peru. If Mobil's ad is to be believed, Conservation
International's collaboration in this unnecessary and destructive project
has been secured.121

THE WORLD BANK'S CLIMATE HYPOCRISY

Researchers have documented that the World Bank and other
international financial institutions have a similar Climate
Hypocrisy policy. Rather than assisting developing countries in
phasing out fossil fuels, the Banks are lending millions of dollars
a year for new fossil fuel projects. These projects include
coal-fired power plants in China and India, the most carbon
intensive energy sources available. The researchers found that the
projects enriched Amoco, Exxon, Chevron and Mobil, among other
western companies.

World Bank projects financed since 1992 will produce 37.9 billion
tons of carbon, more than a year's worth of total carbon emissions
for the whole world. US export credit and insurance agencies, the
Export Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation,
have underwritten $23.2 billion in financing for fossil fuel
projects around the world -- projects which will emit 25.5 billion
tons of CO2 over their lifetimes. Yet when China recently
announced a $23 million investment in solar energy, no international
financial institution supported it.115

Shell has its "Profits or Principles" philosophy which indicates that
it does not need to choose between profits and principles but can satisfy
everyone. A recent ad, replete with the predictably exuberant green
foliage behind the company logo, claims Shell is "focusing [its] energies
on developing [renewable energy] solutions"122
even while its Annual Reports document fossil fuel growth and provide maps
graphically demonstrating the astounding global reach of its oil and gas
exploration and production operations.123

In 1999, British Petroleum one-upped its competitors in the greenwash
sweepstakes. Chairman John Browne laid the groundwork with his endorsement
of the precautionary principle and recognition that BP needs to take into
account the views of the society in which it operates. Then came a
commitment to reduce BP's own emissions by 10% by the year 2010.124
In March, 1999, BP bought Solarex for $45 million, making it the largest
solar company in the world. And on March 13th, John Browne announced that
BP Amoco would install solar panels in 200 gas stations around the
world.

It's not that there's anything intrinsically wrong with these
initiatives. Its just that they pale in comparison to the aggressive
consolidation of power and commitment to fossil fuels in which the company
has been engaged. For BP, being the world's largest solar company is not
difficult. The $45 million spent on Solarex, is a mere fraction of the
$400 million in transfer taxes associated with the purchase of ARCO, which
cost $26.5 billion.125

The company's dramatic move to acquire Arco in 1999 was aimed at
strengthening its gasoline marketing position in the US, and gives it
control over all Alaskan oil exploration. In Alaska alone, BP Amoco will
spend $5 billion in the next five years on oil exploration and
production.126
The implication is clear: BP Amoco is committed, over the long
term, to continued reliance on oil and gas.

The merger with Amoco and the purchase of Arco put John Browne at the
helm of the largest fossil fuel company in the world. The pursuit of oil
in Alaska and in the Arctic are perfect examples of following a fossil
fuel path which is leading to catastrophic climate change. The endorsement
of the precautionary approach and the miniscule solar investments don't
change the basic facts. BP Amoco is part of greenhouse greenwash, an
attempt to dupe the public into leaving the oil companies to regulate
themselves.

In reality, over time, the Greenhouse Gangsters have not used their
power for significant development of renewable energy. In 1973,
geothermal, wind, and solar accounted for 0.1% of world energy supply. In
1996, renewables accounted for a mere 0.4% of world energy supply. During
that same period, oil declined in terms of dominance of fuel supply, from
44.9% to 35.3%, though it is still the biggest source. But this decline
was replaced largely with natural gas, which contributes equally to global
warming, and nuclear power.127

HYDROCARBONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

"Speaking of human rights in the [Amazonian] oil producing
regions is like speaking a language from another planet."128

-Paulina Garzon, Center for Economic and Social
Rights, Quito, Ecuador

Oil development has been at the center of human rights abuses
around the globe for decades, and the companies have come under
withering attacks for their roles. In Ecuador, Texaco dominated the
oil industry for decades and the pollution from their operations
affected an estimated 30,000 Amazonian Indians and farmers. Their
health, their ability to grow food, their land, in short, their
entire lives, were affected. These oil victims are plaintiffs in a
lawsuit against Texaco for damage to their land and health.129

In Nigeria, Shell's role in propping up the military
dictatorship became notorious because of the execution of Ken
Saro-Wiwa and the suppression of dissent by the Ogoni people. In
1998, Chevron played a similar role, providing transport for
military personnel who killed Ijaw youth who were protesting at oil
installations. Shell and Chevron are also being sued in US courts
for these violations.130

In Burma, California-based Unocal's Yadana pipeline is the
cause of massive militarization of the area, which has resulted in
forced relocation, forced labor, rape and summary executions by the
military regime. Unocal joins Shell, Texaco and Chevron in the
dubious distinction of being sued for its role in these
abuses.131

In Colombia, a former oil engineer says "it is inarguable
that the arrival of the petroleum industry to any region of the
country immediately worsens the conditions of the population. One
only has to look at a map to see that the regions of violent
conflict and human rights violations coincide with the regions of
natural resource exploitation, particularly petroleum."132
Despite this record, environmental protection is not the only cause
the Greenhouse Gangsters have belatedly adopted in the last few
years. The oil giants are now promoting themselves as human rights
champions as well.

Incredibly, the oil industry is proud of its human rights record.
Shell and Unocal, for example, both include the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights on their websites and Shell discusses
why it is committed to human rights.

The American Petroleum Institute offers a 12-page dossier: "Oil
and Natural Gas Industry Promotes Human Rights Abroad." The
Institute concludes that "Wherever they are engaged, American
petroleum companies...provide powerful support for humanitarian
activities."

The compendium includes claims such as: "Peru has benefited in a
number of ways from the presence of Occidental Petroleum." This
laugher specifically mentions the sinking of 10 freshwater wells
along three Rivers in northeastern Peru which are known for their
contamination by crude oil from Oxy's operations. Oxy also has the
gall to include its contribution to education in Colombia, where it
threatens to begin oil activities in sacred U'wa land. The 5,000
U'wa people have threatened to commit mass suicide if Oxy
proceeds.

In this document we discover that BP joined with WWF in bringing
environmental education into the school curriculum in China. We may
be surprised to learn that Shell has "consistently called for fair
trials and humane treatment for prisoners" in Nigeria, where the
military government executed Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni
activists for agitating against Shell. Perhaps we're shocked to find
out that Unocal has "improve[d] living conditions in the Yadana
region of Myanmar [Burma]," where, as even UNOCAL President John
Imle has admitted, forced labor has been used to build the company's
pipeline.

Evidently, Exxon had to dig deep to find something to include
here. It joined with the government of Colombia to form a nonprofit
organization to promote economic development. It has helped "to
promote capitalism among young people in Russia." Quite believable.
And finally, a bit of unintended, though welcome, honesty: "Exxon is
committed to helping its advertising icon [the
tiger]."

Part 3: Climate Justice

The petroleum industry is going through the biggest restructuring since
the oil embargo of 1973. At the start of the 21st century, a few
super-giant oil companies will be moving toward re-establishing their
dominance over one of the world's most strategic industries.

As we have seen, fossil fuel production by just five corporations
accounts for 10% of all carbon emissions. If we include their role in
refining and marketing, their contribution to climate change is higher.
Their power in Washington and other capitals is difficult to resist, and
that power is magnified by a collective political strategy. The
globalization dynamic they have forged further expands their reach and
impact. This collection of power dwarfs the influence of the individual to
affect change through lifestyle choices.

As the saying goes, with power comes responsibility. How has the
industry handled its power? The oil giants would like us to believe they
have become allies in the quests for environmental protection, sustainable
development and human rights. These corporations have adopted, to varying
degrees, the rhetoric of scientists and environmentalists concerned about
climate change. They promote their human rights and environmental records.
They would like us to believe that they understand the problem better than
anyone, and are in the best position to balance scientific, technological,
environmental and economic considerations when finding solutions.

Secoya demonstrators in Ecuador:
"Gas prices rise and my rainforest cries." People around the world
are fighting the Greenhouse Gangsters for survival.Credit: Andy Drumm/RAN

Reality, however, is a different story. On the ground, the Greenhouse
Gangsters are egregious violators of human rights and environmental
standards. The oil companies' exploration and extraction of oil has
destroyed rainforests and polluted Indigenous lands. Their oil boomtowns
have torn the social fabric and introduced disease to Indigenous and
peasant communities. Their oil separation stations have dumped
contaminated wastewater in rainforest and farmland. Their hellish gas
flares light up the night. Their pipelines and oil tankers have spilled
billions of barrels of oil, causing toxic contamination. Their refineries,
often located in low-income communities, have polluted the air and water,
while poisoning workers. Their host communities often remain impoverished,
despite the wealth oil generates. Their political allies have repressed
dissent, sometimes violently and brutally. Is this an industry which can
be trusted to deal responsibly with its role in causing global
warming?

The reality is that because of their powerful interests, the oil giants
are adversaries, rather than allies, in the quest for environmental
protection and justice. Their behavior demonstrates that their goal is to
obstruct actions to prevent climate change so as to protect their business
for as long as possible. Modeling their actions on historic corporate
responses to environmental issues, the Greenhouse Gangsters have taken
strategic steps to accomplish this goal at the expense of the planet's
health.

Climate Justice places environmental, labor and
human rights at the center of the movement to reverse global
warming

The US Chamber of Commerce, a leading business association, has vowed
to "Block [the] Climate Treaty and 'Environmental Justice.'"134
Perhaps without realizing it, they made the link: climate protection and
environmental justice go hand in hand. The best solutions to climate
change will not only reverse global warming. They will protect jobs and
incomes, improve respect for human rights, reduce inequality between and
within nations, improve the local environment in many places, and reduce
our dependence on a few large corporations for our daily energy needs. Or,
as Esperanza Martinez, coordinator of the global, Ecuador-based Oil Watch
network, puts it: "the sum of local experiences...will help us resist the
causes of climate change."135

Thus, the following is an attempt to set forth a platform for Climate
Justice.

1. Remove the Causes of Global Warming -- Build Democratic Control
Over Corporations

Almost every one of us is an emitter of greenhouse gasses, an addict,
if you will, of fossil fuels. We must participate in the technological
changes which will be necessary, including reining in our energy habits.
But we must also change the habits of the pushers, the fossil fuel
producers. Ultimately, if those who supply and continue to push fossil
fuels are not held accountable, we will live the 21st century in a
turbulent and terrifying greenhouse world.

Addressing climate change is intertwined with the challenge of building
a movement to address increasingly unfettered corporate power in the US
and worldwide. Corporations, through their influence in the legislative,
executive and judicial branches of government, through their unabashed
promotion of the globalization agenda, through their control of the
mainstream media and their advertising power, continue to undermine
democratic institutions nationally and internationally. By creating a
global system of corporate rule where the bottom line reigns supreme,
these companies -- the Greenhouse Gangsters central among them -- attempt
to insulate themselves from the values of human, labor and environmental
rights.

A movement for Climate Justice must join with other organized efforts
to strive to reverse this dynamic. It must make human rights, labor rights
and the environment the guiding forces for local, national and
international politics and economics. If we are to halt global warming
while addressing the other negative impacts of the Greenhouse Gangsters
and their cohorts, we must build a movement for grassroots globalization
and democratic control over corporations.

Such democratic control could and should take many different forms.
Regulating not just how a company produces something, but rather
what that company produces is an important step toward greater democratic
control over corporations. When applied to climate change this approach
might manifest itself in government requirements that oil companies invest
truly significant amounts of money in developing ecologically sound energy
and employment alternatives.

Another step toward exerting democratic control can be taken through
divestment campaigns against the Greenhouse Gangsters and other climate
culprits. In fact, students at many universities across the US are
organizing a nationwide "Cool the Planet" campaign to pressure their
schools to divest their holdings in members of the Global Climate
Coalition.136

More broadly speaking, democratic control over corporations means
revoking the Supreme Court granted status of US personhood whereby
corporations enjoy the same rights and privileges as individual citizens.
Other important reforms that could exert such democratic control include
ending the billions of dollars in government subsidies to the oil
industry; strictly prohibiting corporate campaign contributions;
supporting and generating government subsidies for the widespread
development of community based, renewable energy sources; and creating
affordable, sustainable public transportation.

The prevention of climate change goes hand in
hand with opposition to corporate rule.

With such changes in place, Senate approval of the Kyoto Protocol would
be a slam dunk. Of course, to get there, a powerful social movement must
emerge in the US and around the world to challenge the Greenhouse
Gangsters. Such a movement for Climate Justice must make democratic
control over corporations a central organizing principle.

2. Oppose the Destructive Impacts of Oil Locally and Globally

The growing global reach of the Greenhouse Gangsters is encountering
increasingly vibrant movements to curtail the mastery of oil in our
society. One is the movement for climate protection. Internationally, most
activists have put their efforts into strengthening the Kyoto Protocol,
which in theory will reduce greenhouse gas emissions country by country.
This will require a major transformation of energy and transportation
systems and development models.

This movement has allies and potential allies whose own battles for
survival against the oil companies provide a strong push for Climate
Justice. For example, many Indigenous people and their networks are
leading battles against new oil exploration which has profoundly impacted
them. And to a growing number of Indigenous people, the connection between
their local struggles against the fossil fuel industry's incursion on
their ecologically fragile lands and the global problem of climate change
is clear. As a group of Indigenous leaders meeting on climate change
recently declared, "The continuing large scale extraction of fossil fuels
results in a number of adverse changes in these vital zones, including
deforestation, pollution from drilling and ultimately forest degradation
caused by climactic instability on a world wide scale...The zones of
fossil fuel extraction are the homes of some of the oldest and most
vulnerable Indigenous populations on Mother Earth. This accelerates the
loss of biodiversity, traditional knowledge and, ultimately results in
ethnocide and genocide."137

NO NEW EXPLORATION!

A moratorium on all new oil exploration would benefit the global
climate, fragile local ecosystems and Indigenous people living in
these pristine places. A moratorium would acknowledge the long-term
necessity for society to wean itself eventually off of fossil fuels.
It would recognize that we cannot afford to burn all the oil on the
planet without causing catastrophic climate change. A moratorium
would cut off the spigot of climate change, even as we allow
ourselves time to transform our energy and transportation systems.
By the time supplies of fossil fuels get low, society will have had
more time to develop alternative energy sources.

For the sake of the protection of Indigenous rights and tropical
forests, a moratorium on new oil exploration should begin with a
focus on pristine and ecologically sensitive areas, and a
recognition that Indigenous people have the right to say no to oil
development on their lands.

While the industry is traditionally concerned with replenishing
its consumption with new finds, the carbon logic, i.e. the
ecological limit on our ability to burn oil safely, indicates it is
time to lower that priority in favor of investment in other energy
sources. So far, the industry has not responded to calls for a
moratorium on new oil. Governments are unlikely to call for a
moratorium right now, but as Esperanza Martinez, coordinator of
Oilwatch in Quito, asserts, the moratorium "can be decreed by
governments or it can be decreed and executed by local populations."
139

Similarly, communities in the US located near refineries which have
built resistance to the toxic pollution and refinery accidents through
groups like the National Oil Refinery Action Network are key allies in the
struggle for Climate Justice. The disproportionate siting of polluting
facilities like refineries in low income communities of color has sparked
an environmental justice movement that has responded to both unjust
government policies and to the unfettered power of transnational
corporations, like the Greenhouse Gangsters. When a Latino community in
Austin forces the corporate clean-up of oil storage tanks, it becomes a
victory -- a link in a chain that can eventually sever the stranglehold of
the Greenhouse Gangsters.138

3. Forge Just Solutions to the Challenge of Climate Change

Prevention of climate change could impact workers in fossil
fuel-intensive industries and neighboring communities hardest if there is
no parallel effort to foster a Just Transition. Also, as we have seen,
some of the proposed "solutions," like pollution trading, are not only
unproven but also inequitable, as they allow local communities to become
toxic sacrifice zones for the rest of the planet, while letting countries
like the US delay true emissions reductions. Solutions that force
countries of the South to bear an undue burden are unjust as well.

A Climate Justice approach to solving the global warming problem would,
at its core, develop solutions that promoted economic and environmental
justice between communities and between nations. Central to this approach
is the principle of Just Transition, which would set aside funds to
finance the transition for workers and communities dependent on the fossil
fuel industry. Such a transition would promote investment, worker training
and community development based on sustainability and justice.

There is already organizing and growing pressure on this front from
workers and communities. As mentioned earlier, the recently merged Oil,
Chemical and Atomic Workers Union and Paperworkers International (PACE),
is working in partnership with the Southwest Network for Environmental and
Economic Justice (SNEEJ) to build a Just Transition Consortium. The
consortium counts among its members a number of environmental justice
organizations, including the Indigenous Environmental Network, the Asian
Pacific Environmental Network, and the Northeast Environmental Justice
Network, along with Canada's Chemical, Energy and Paperworkers Union. This
consortium is organizing workers and neighboring "fence-line" communities
through training and dialogue. The focus of this effort is to bring
together these groups, which have been wedged apart by industry, and to
mobilize them to implement a Just Transition of their jobs and communities
so they do not unjustly bear the negative economic burden of addressing
the impacts of local pollution or global climate change.

A similar transition needs to be fostered at the international level,
whereby Southern nations are given support to transition their economies
away from fossil fuels. For instance, technology for ecologically sound
energy development should be made available to the poorer countries for
little or no cost, rather than being held hostage to corporate driven
intellectual property and patent regimes.

Climate Justice also requires that adequate support be given to the
victims of global warming -- especially environmental refugees who have
lost access to their land, homes, food, health and work as a result of
global warming.

Finally, Climate Justice demands that the Kyoto Protocol negotiations
be democratized. Until now, the minor concessions of the Kyoto Protocol
have been negotiated in international fora dominated by government and
lobbyists for industry. The voices of NGOs, Indigenous peoples and those
most affected by climate change have not been included.

4. Reverse the dynamics of corporate-led, fossil fuel based
globalization

Currently, corporate led globalization is fostering investment
opportunities and new markets for the fossil fuel industry. International
trade and investment agreements like NAFTA and the WTO, along with
multilateral lending institutions like the World Bank/IMF, have created
the global economic structures that are advancing both corporate profits
and global warming.

Climate Justice requires that the world economy serve interests of
human rights and the environment, not corporate bottom line. For starters,
international labor standards from the ILO, the Universal Declaration on
Human Rights and UN-brokered international environmental agreements like
the Kyoto Protocol must take precedence over the institutions of
globalization like the WTO. The World Bank and other lending institutions
must reverse their policies subsidizing fossil fuel-based
globalization.

True Climate Justice requires that the Kyoto Protocol specifically
focus at the root of the problem -- the 122 corporations that produce 80
percent of the fossil fuel which winds up as carbon dioxide in the Earth's
atmosphere. A first step toward international control of these global
climate culprits would be for the Kyoto Protocol to require that every
major energy company in the world report the current and future global
warming emissions implications of the fossil fuel production and
investments.140
Based on this reporting, the world's governments could begin to hold
Greenhouse Gangsters and their cohorts globally accountable for their
central contribution to this global problem.

Climate Justice also means that the central corporate contribution to
global warming be publicly identified on a global scale. There are many
creative ways to do this. For instance, in 1998 members of the European
Parliament proposed that hurricanes should be renamed to reflect this
corporate role. Thus Hurricane Mitch might have been called Hurricane
Shell, while Hurricane Floyd might instead have been called Hurricane
Exxon-Mobil.

Final Words

The clash between the hydrocarbon economy and environmental protection
seems to present an intractable contradiction. But it also presents an
opportunity to society. Once we accept that climate change forces us to
severely limit fossil fuel use, we can begin to free ourselves of the
tyranny of the oil industry over our lives. We can reduce destruction of
Indigenous cultures and reduce pollution of local communities. We can
begin to build less centralized energy systems, cleaner cities, less
sprawl, more cooperation between North and South, more independence from
the super-giant corporations which now control such fundamental aspects of
our daily lives. The prevention of climate change goes hand in hand with
the opposition to corporate rule.

Of course, Climate Justice will not be achieved without the emergence
of a powerful movement for grassroots globalization -- one which links
efforts for social and environmental justice across the globe. The good
news is that such a movement is emerging.

Notes

Exxon and Mobil announced their intention to merge in
1998. Unless otherwise indicated, this paper treats them as one
corporation. The merger is pending US government approval.

The recently merged BP Amoco has announced its
intention to buy Arco. Unless otherwise indicated, this paper treats
them as one corporation. The merger is pending US government approval.

Kingpins of Carbon: How Fossil Fuel Producers
Contribute to Global Warming, Natural Resources Defense Council, the
Union of Concerned Scien-tists and the US Public Interest Research Group
Education Fund, Washington DC, July 1999.(www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/carbon/kocinx.asp)The
figure of 122 corporations counts Exxon, Mobil, BP Amoco, Arco, Total
Fina and Elf Aquitaine as separate companies.

Personal interview with Paulina Garzon, Center for
Economic and Social Rights, Quito, 6/3/99, regarding oil's impacts on
the Amazon region of Ecuador

Almost every week brings new scientific reports of
observed effects of climate change in scientific publications or general
interest magazines and newspapers. A good summary as of spring '99 can
be found in Patrick Mazza and Rhys Roth, "Global Warming Is Here: The
Scientific Evidence" Climate Solutions, Olympia, Washington, May 1999

See Bradford C. Snell, American Ground Transport: A
Proposal for Restructuring the Automobile, Truck, Bus and Rail
Industries, Report prepared for the Committee of the Judiciary,
Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly, United States Senate, February
26, 1974.

In this paper, natural gas is considered as part of
the petroleum, or oil industry. Natural gas generally burns somewhat
cleaner than oil, and theoretically has a slightly lower greenhouse
effect than oil. However, fugitive emissions of natural gas bring its
greenhouse effect up to oil's level. Moreover, the local impacts of
natural gas extraction are similar to oil. Finally, natural gas is
dominated by the same corporate players as oil.

The US government provided net subsidies of between
$5.2 and $11.9 billion to the oil sector during 1995, Douglas Koplow and
Aaron Martin, Fueling Global Warming: Federal Subsidies to Oil in the
United States, Greenpeace USA, Washington DC, 1998.

Leslie Wayne "Companies Used to Getting their Way,"
The New York Times 12/4/98 p.C1

Figure 1.5: CO2 emissions of top 100
generating companies, Benchmarking Air Emissions of Electric Utility
Generators in the U.S, Natural Resources Defense Council, New York 1998

The Seven Sisters were Standard of New Jersey (later
Exxon), Socony-Vacuum (Mobil), Standard of California (Chevron), Texaco,
Gulf, Royal Dutch/Shell and British Petroleum. The eighth major was
French-owned CFP. Daniel Yergin, The Prize p. 503 Simon and
Schuster, New York 1991

This argument is thoroughly explained in several
Greenpeace Reports, including The Carbon Logic, Greenpeace International
Amsterdam, 1997, and on the Greenpeace WebPage http://www.greenpeace.org/. The
argument against new oil exploration on grounds of human rights
protection as well as climate protection is well laid out in Steve
Kretzman and Shannon Wright, Drilling to Ends of the Earth

Among the groups which have called for a moratorium
in some form are the Oilwatch Network, Environmental Rights Action,
Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, Project Underground, Institute
for Policy Studies, Accion Ecologica, and many others.

Mike Ward, "Escaping the Shadows of the Tanks:
Citizens Use voice for Change," Austin American-Statesman, 2/14/93

Personal communication, Esperanza Martinez

Kingpins of Carbon, Executive Summary.

Climate Justice Resources

Centre for Science and Environment, CSE is a leading voice from
the South on questions of climate change and international equity.41,
Tughlakabad Institutional Area, New Delhi-110062 INDIATel:
91-11-698-1110, Fax: 91-11-698-5879, Email: webadmin@cseindia.orgWeb: www.oneworld.org/cse/

Cool the Planet is a national student-run campaign dedicated to
opening people's eyes to the threat global warming poses to the future and
to showing the world that students are no longer going to stand for the
corrupt policies of corporate America and groups like the Global Climate
Coalition.Web: http://www.cooltheplanet.org/ or
www.ozone.org/cooltheplanet.htm

EarthRights International combines the power of law and the
power of people in defense of human rights and the environment. ERI works
on the ground level in Southeast Asia.2012 Massachusetts Avenue NW,
Washington D.C. 20036Tel: 202-466-5188, Fax: 202-466-5189Web: http://www.earthrights.org/

Friends of the Earth International runs a climate change
campaign, focuses on corporations like Exxon and lobbies governments
around the world on ratifying and strengthening the Kyoto
Protocol.P.O. Box 19199, 1000 GD Amsterdam, The NetherlandsTel:
31-20-622-1369, Fax: 639-2181, Email: foeint@antenna.nlWeb: www.foe.co.uk/climatechange/

Greenpeace has steadily pressured the world's governments
through campaigning and lobbying to enact and implement the Kyoto
Protocol. It has also targeted corporate climate culprits, including many
large oil corporations for their role.1436 U St NW, Washington D.C.
20009Tel: 202-462-1177, Fax: 202-462-4507Web: www.greenpeace.org/climate

Indigenous Environmental Network is an alliance of grassroots
indigenous peoples whose mission is to protect the sacredness of Mother
Earth from contamination and exploitation by strengthening maintaining and
respecting the traditional teachings and the natural laws. IEN was helped
draft the Albequerque Declaration of Indigenous peoples on climate
change.PO Box 485, Bemidji, MN 56601Tel: 218-751-4967, Fax:
218-751-0561, Email: ien@igc.orgWeb:
www.alphacdc.com/ien/

The Just Transition Consortium is a process to ameliorate the
conflict between jobs and the environment. It brings organized labor, the
traditional environmental community and the people of color environmental
justice movement together to develop policies and relationships to avert
clashes.c/o Public Health Institute, 853 Broadway, Room 2014, New
York, NY 10003Tel: 212-674-3322, Fax: 212-353-1203, Email: laborinst@aol.comWeb: http://www.justtransition.org/

The National Oil Refinery Action Network links together
neighbors, workers, and responsible shareholders who want to see the oil
industry made cleaner, healthier, and safer. A project of CBE.c/o CBE,
500 Howard Street, Suite 506, San Francisco, CA 94105Tel:
415-243-8373, Email: cbebucket@igc.orgWeb: www.igc.org/cbesf

Oilwatch is an Ecuador-based network of organizations and
communities in Asia, Africa and Latin America fighting oil development in
the tropics. Oil Watch has also been active on the climate change
issue.Alejandro de Valdez N24-33 y La Gasca Casilla 15-15-246-C,
Quito, EcuadorTel: 593-9-700-712; Fax: 593-2-547-516; Email: Oilwatch@uio.satnet.net

The Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice is
a coalition of community based grassroots organizations, native, labor and
student groups from the southwestern and western United States working to
build a multi-racial, multi-cultural and international movement that
promotes environmental and economic justice. SNEEJ is a participant in the
Just Transition consortium.P.O. Box 7399, Albuquerque, NM
87194tel. 505-242-0416, Fax: 505-242-5609, Email: sneej@flash.net